The torch I bear
by Serenitas
Summary: Malfoy is leaving Hogwarts and Harry realizes that perhaps he cares for his enemy more than he thought. Will he have time to tell Draco before he leaves?


This little bit of Harry/Draco fluff was inspired by the imminent departure of one of my coworkers who spent most of his time making my life hell, fighting with me and generally being my nemesis and sworn enemy. This one is for you J! Goodbye, and perhaps the truth of beloved enemies isn't just something you read in books eh? Please read and review but be kind. No flames! Rated R just to be safe, for the opening scene is rather steamy.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He fought to open his eyes, but the sensations were too great and too pleasurable. Lips caressed his and he had to remind himself that they were lips and not silk, hands were everywhere, stroking and caressing him, doing unspeakable things to him. His mouth opened to ask who it was and it was promptly covered by the sweet tasting mouth. He needed more...more... His hands raised to meet a firm chest, a solid and flat stomach which he caressed, his hands moving lower and lower still. He needed more of this perfect person who was making him a mass of nerves, a bundle of sensation. He gasped in surprise at the feel of an erection straining, fighting to meet his, grinding into his thigh while he could only moan, his mouth covered by another that was trained in the arts of sinful pleasure. Was it possible to die from over stimulation? He thought so as he moved in time with this invisible man. As he cracked his eyelids open, a gentle hand swept them shut again. "I want all your thoughts to be of me," he murmured. "And if you see me, you might change your mind. If you can't see it, it is not real, it is only a dream."  
  
  
  
He wanted to protest that he would remember, no matter what. He could no more forget this person than he could forget to breathe. He felt gentle hands prodding him behind and let out a cry as he was penetrated, which his lover kissed away. "Shh my love, it will only hurt for a moment." He wanted to explain that it didn't hurt. The fingers inside him were soon replaced by something much larger and more pleasurable and he groaned as his prostate was touched. Moving in time together, he clasped his hand to that of his lover, and they rocked in an ageless dance, coming closer to the brink, closer to nirvana, closer to eternity...in that moment before climax he opened his eyes to behold the radiant being that was doing unto him... he had to know...as the world rocked, as time stopped he opened his mouth to roar his name... this was all a dream...or was it?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Harry you git wake up!" the voice of Ron Weasley, his soon to be dead best friend shook him awake.   
  
  
  
Harry groaned and cracked an eye. "Ron, do the words Avada Kedavra hold any meaning to you?"  
  
  
  
"Oh come on you great pouf, get out of bed!" Ron persisted. "I have news that can't wait! This is great! There is a God and he has heard my prayer!"  
  
  
  
"What are you talking about?" Harry muttered as he pulled himself into a sitting position, praying Ron wouldn't notice the ever so obvious hardness through his sheets. Had that been real or a dream? He swore he could still feel the hands on his chest, the lips on his own.  
  
  
  
"Malfoy!" Ron's voice reached a pitch Harry didn't think a man's voice could reach. "He's leaving! He's gone! He's going away forever!"  
  
  
  
Neville dropped to his knees in a prayer of thanks and Seamus began to dance a jig with Dean, letting out a whoop of joy. "What?" Harry whispered, unable to believe it. His greatest enemy, his number one antagonist, the person who made his life a living hell was leaving?  
  
  
  
"You heard me! Now get up!"  
  
  
  
"But why is he leaving?" Harry persisted.  
  
  
  
"I don't know. Lucius Malfoy is pulling him out of school that's all I heard before I ran out and up the stairs to tell you this glorious news. Up! Up lazybones for a new day is dawning, a new era rising, one without bloody poncey wanking Draco Malfoy!" Ron said gleefully.  
  
  
  
Harry was unable to move, shocked into stillness by the announcement. "Harry," Seamus said shrewdly. "I would have thought you'd be leading the cheering squad and offering to help him move out personally. You two have fought since you first met, you hate each other like poison and now he's leaving. You seem awfully subdued for someone who is about to lose their worst enemy."  
  
  
  
"Oh it's just a shock Seamus." Harry said lightly, unable to understand why his chest felt so tight, why he swore he felt tears underneath the surface of his eyes.   
  
  
  
"So come on! Let's all go to wave him off!" Ron encouraged. "Come on! Come on!"  
  
  
  
Harry agreed, almost leaping out of his bed, unable to explain why he needed to see Malfoy, only that he did.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"So why is your father pulling you out of Hogwarts?" Blaise Zabini asked Draco as he watched him pack another trunk.  
  
  
  
Draco shrugged. "I've given up trying to figure out what goes through his mind. Something about all the Mudbloods being a bad influence, and he's afraid that the great Malfoy lineage will be tainted or something like that."  
  
  
  
"Strange that he would do it so suddenly."  
  
  
  
"Voldemort probably gave him orders. All I know is that my Hogwarts days are at an end." Draco said casually, brushing imaginary lint off a shirt. The truth was that he knew that Voldemort wanted to prepare Draco for his initation into the Death Eaters, his heir becoming known at last. The Voldemort Youth would be thrilled, they would be spared. For all that he had been raised and trained to believe, Draco was reluctant now that the time was here at last. His future, always so clear, laid before him in neat little packets of time. Get the Dark Mark. Take his place as heir. Marry the girl he was supposed to and propogate the family line. Kill Harry Potter.   
  
  
  
  
It was the last point that made him pause and he didn't know why. Certainly he hated Harry. He went out of his way to make his life a living hell, to torment him with every essence of his being. He was overbearing and big hearted, with a stupid title. The Boy Who Lived. Honestly! Draco snorted softly. Yet the thought of leaving him, of not seeing him every day, of not being around him made him feel like he had a Blast Ended Skrewt on his chest. Somehow, slyly and insidiously Harry had wormed his way under Draco's skin, inside his defense to take up a permanent residence there.   
  
  
  
  
Draco knew he swung both ways and it worked for him, but his enemy? They hated each other, always had. They had never agreed from day one, and they didn't want to. They hexed each other, cursed each other and when no teachers were around resorted to old fashioned, Muggle type fisticuffs to vent their aggressions. People had an underground pool as to who would kill the other first, and who would make the first attempt. Teachers had to separate them, friends had to avoid them.   
  
  
  
He should be leaping for joy, for after this day he would never see Harry Potter again. So why did that thought make him want to cry?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Harry was leading the pack of people to see if it was true, to make sure that his hopes weren't up in vain (or was that his heart dashed?). "It's true then?" he asked, skidding to a halt before a large crowd outside the Slytherin entrance.  
  
  
  
  
"So eager to get rid of me Potter?" Draco's familiar drawl responded. The crowd parted and left the two to face each other. After so many years, they knew better than to get in the crossfire between these two.  
  
  
  
"I couldn't believe it when I heard." Harry admitted.  
  
  
  
"Well it's true. I am leaving here, so perhaps now you will have a decent chance to win an arguement without me to show you up all the time."  
  
  
  
"And you won't have to be made a fool of every time you get on a broomstick." Harry retorted.  
  
  
  
"I let you win, it's the least I can do for an unwanted sod like you."  
  
  
  
"And such a git like yourself wouldn't realize that it's not how long you play the game, it's the desire for the Snitch that lets you win? Your desire just isn't strong enough."  
  
  
  
"Ouch I'm wounded by the rapier like wit of Harry Potter." Draco feigned a knife in his chest.  
  
  
  
"Keep it up bleach head and soon it will be a real one." Harry muttered.  
  
  
  
"I'd like to see you try."  
  
  
  
"You don't have the stones to follow that one through."  
  
  
  
One perfect blonde eyebrow arched. "Oh don't I?"  
  
  
  
"When do you leave?" Harry changed the subject abruptly.  
  
  
  
Draco paused at the change in Potter. His emerald green eyes that Draco had spent many a night fantasizing about (and a number of days) before catching and mentally slapping himself in the face. "In a few hours." he admitted. "Why? Do you want to tell me what you REALLY think of me?"   
  
  
  
Harry could have sworn he heard a note of hopefulness in Malfoy's voice. "Don't you WISH." he shook his head. "You're not man enough to hear what I have to say to you."  
  
  
  
"Time and place Potter." Draco stepped forward.   
  
  
  
Harry paused and Draco almost melted. He looked so adorable! "You know the place."  
  
  
  
Draco nodded. "Time?"  
  
  
  
"The usual."  
  
  
  
"See you soon." Draco walked backwards to the open door in the wall that lead to the Slytherin common room. No one questioned the oddity of the conversation, that was the norm for Malfoy and Potter now. No one ever went to watch their fights, for they were all too common, but there was a buzz as people tried to figure out where the location was, for this would be the last fight and it was sure to be a doozy.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Draco sat in the common room, not seeing his housemates chatter around him, not hearing them try to pump him for information as he lost himself in a fantasy about his Harry. 'Wait a second,' he thought suddenly. "MY Harry? Since when? What has that goody two shoes done to me?'  
  
  
  
'Made you fall for him, that's what.' a voice responded.  
  
  
  
'Oh shut up, I do not fancy that git.'  
  
  
  
'Then why does he play a starring role each night in your dreams?'  
  
  
  
'I'm sixteen! It's natural for me to have those thoughts!'  
  
  
  
'About your hated enemy? Not really.' the voice said glibly. 'Now let's break this down rationally, he's your enemy...'  
  
  
'A strike against him.' Draco responded promptly.  
  
  
  
'You two are torn between fighting and killing...'  
  
  
  
'I will emerge victorious.'   
  
  
  
'Yet you fail to realize the one most simple thing, the rest of the school can see it, why can't you?'  
  
  
  
'Which is what?'  
  
  
  
'The greatest love springs from the greatest hate.' his mind played its trump card.  
  
  
  
'Oh you have GOT to be joking!' Draco exclaimed mentally. 'I am leaving, and that's all there is to it. Harry bloody Potter can go leap off a tall building for all I care. He means nothing to me. All we do is fight.'  
  
  
  
'Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.'  
  
  
  
'Oh just go away.' he thought irritably.  
  
  
  
Draco groaned and let his head fall into his hands.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Harry crept into the abandoned old room that was in the dungeons. He and Draco had found it most by accident, and as far as they knew they were the only ones who knew of its existence. This was the place that they came for all their fights now, preferring to not have the public debacles they were so famous for. "You're late Potter."  
  
  
  
"It's not that easy to get out of Gryffindor tower these days without someone following me. I think they want to make sure that I will be safe from you." Harry replied, his heart speeding up at the sight of him. After sitting down in the reasonable silence and ignoring Ron and Hermione, he had thought things out clearly. He was trying to figure out why the imminent departure of his most hated enemy, his most ferverent tormenter filled him with such dread and sorrow and not the gleeful joy he always imagined that he would have.   
  
  
  
"Your problems matter little to me." Draco glanced at a clock on the wall. "I leave in an hour or so Potter, so let's get this last fight over with."  
  
  
Harry looked at the floor. "This really is the last one, isn't it?"  
  
  
  
Draco swallowed, aware of the tightness in his chest. "It seems that way."  
  
  
  
"Will you go to him and become a loyal Death Eater?" Harry asked in an almost casual manner.  
  
  
  
"Most likely. My future is all planned out. Look Potter, are we going to fight or not? I have alot to do before I leave."  
  
  
  
Harry looked at him, emerald green eyes meeting pale silver and he swallowed. "I can't imagine you not being here."  
  
  
  
Draco snapped back a witty retort and nodded. "I've come to look forward to our fights."  
  
  
  
"Well, let's get this over with." Harry drew in a deep breath and walked towards him. "I learned a new hex and I have been desperate to try it out on someone."  
  
  
  
Draco reached for his wand, but Harry reached him faster. He opened his mouth to speak and then Potter's lips covered his. Shock and startlement raced through his mind as it registered that Potter was kissing him, as he realized that this was much better than the dreams he had been having. He wrapped his arms around Potter's head and pulled him closer, as Harry gently prodded his lips apart with his tounge. He was no longer certain of the difference between the dream world and the waking world, only that it all involved Potter, and he was here right now.  
  
  
  
Out of a urgent need for oxygen, they separated, breathing heavily. Harry looked at Draco, his expressive eyes hiding nothing from Draco's penetrating silver. "Goodbye." he said in a choked voice. "I will lay rest the grace in my tounge and speak plain, that you have been my tormenter, you have been my rival and the bane of my existence. Not one day has gone by when you haven't tried to make my life a living hell or vice versa. You have always made it interesting, you have always kept me on my toes and you kept me from getting a hero complex. Perhaps now, at the moment of goodbye I realize that we don't detest each other as much as we thought." he stepped away from him. "Goodbye Draco."  
  
  
  
Draco said nothing, only listening to Harry's words. When the word goodbye cut through him like a knife, his eyes flew open and he grabbed Harry's arm. "You don't really think I am going to let you go after that do you? You kissed me."  
  
  
  
"And it was better than my dreams." Harry admitted.   
  
  
  
"Better than mine too." Draco whispered so that Harry could barely hear him.  
  
  
  
"I think I care more than I have let on." Harry said softly, walking back towards Draco. "You are in my dreams each night."  
  
  
  
"You have haunted me for years." Draco murmured.  
  
  
  
"Do you want to leave, to become a Death Eater?" Harry persisted.  
  
  
  
"No, but I must do what I must. I do wish I could stay." Draco shook his head. "In any case Potter, you should go join the others, have a big group sing about me leaving and get those kumbaya's out."  
  
  
  
"I don't want to." Harry shook his head.  
  
  
  
Draco sighed. "The day you suss out what you really want there will probably be a celebration. A bloody twenty one gun salute."  
  
  
  
"He'll kill you you know."  
  
  
  
"I died many years ago Potter." He paused. "This isn't real...but I just want to feel..."  
  
  
  
Harry grabbed Draco and pulled him close. "Stay." was all he said as he lowered his mouth to Draco's. Breaking apart he looked at the dragon in his eyes. "Don't leave here. Don't leave me."  
  
  
  
"Harry..." Draco protested weakly, glancing at the clock. Half an hour. He had half an hour and then he would be gone like the wind. The next time they met would be on the field of battle, to the death.   
  
  
  
Harry wiped a tear from his eye. "I'll miss you Draco."  
  
  
  
"Harry," Draco said suddenly. "They aren't dreams."  
  
  
  
"What?"   
  
  
  
"I have been visiting you in Gryffindor Tower at night. They are not dreams." Draco confessed.   
  
  
  
"And now we'll never know what might have been." Harry shook his head sadly. He kissed Draco softly and walked to the door. At the doorway he paused. "I won't be able to kill you you know, on the field of battle. The dark will win if you and I have to fight. I can't hurt you Draco, because I think that I love you."  
  
  
  
Draco watched, stunned as Harry slipped out the door. He glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"You know I can't believe you are doing this Malfoy."   
  
  
"You know Crabbe I think that is the first coherent sentence I have ever heard you speak." Draco replied as he did a final check.  
  
  
"You're really leaving." Goyle added.  
  
  
"Yes you two imbeciles, I'm really leaving! Get it through your thick skulls. Besides," Draco drew himself up with a sneer. "It's not like I'll miss this place."  
  
  
  
"You're not just leaving Hogwarts Draco, you're leaving him." Blaise interjected, watching his long time dorm mate freeze.  
  
  
  
"What? Who?" Draco sputtered in a most unMalfoyish way.  
  
  
  
Blaise snorted. "You can't share a dorm with someone for five years and not know them very well. You and Potter... anyone with eyes can see that you fancy him."  
  
  
"You are deluded." Draco shook his head. "I have a glorious future serving the dark Lord ahead of me. What else could I want?"  
  
  
"If you have to ask that, perhaps you're not as smart as you think you are."  
  
  
  
"Mr. Malfoy sir," a house elf said, appearing suddenly. "It is time."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Harry stared unseeing into the fire that danced in the grate, again ignoring Ron and Hermione and the others. He glanced up at the clock and saw Seamus smirking next to him. "It drives you crazy doesn't it?" Seamus said in a low tone. "To love someone you are sworn to hate."  
  
  
  
"I don't know what you are talking about." Harry whispered in a voice just as low.  
  
  
  
"Don't you? Harry I am like you, and I can see the fire burning between you and Malfoy, it catches everything else and sucks it in. People want to be around you two because you make everything else seem so much more alive. You know you fancy him, and I'm certain he fancies you." Seamus whispered.  
  
  
"And now he's gone."  
  
  
  
Seamus' mouth quirked in a semi-grin. Harry had not noticed the emptying of the common room. "Maybe, and then again maybe not."  
  
  
  
"I don't care either way, it's not like I would snog him senseless if I saw him. The next time I see him, I will have to kill him."  
  
  
  
"I'll remember you said that." Seamus said, walking around Harry and forcing him to turn his head. He froze when he saw Draco standing in the entrance.   
  
  
  
"Draco." he breathed.  
  
  
  
"I was getting ready to leave and I realized I had forgotten something."   
  
  
  
"Which is?" Harry crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
  
  
"I had forgotten to kiss you goodbye." he walked towards him. "Would you mind?"  
  
  
  
Harry thought about it for a moment. "Not really, no." as Draco leaned in to kiss him, he pulled back. "So are you leaving or not?"  
  
  
  
"Not." Draco breathed. "And now your dream will become a reality, because I hated having to keep your eyes closed."  
  
  
  
Harry wrapped his arms around Draco and lost himself in the kiss, ignoring the whistle of Seamus or the flashes that went off when Colin began taking pictures. They didn't care that Draco had the wrath of Lucius Malfoy and all other Death Eaters to face, they cared about nothing but themselves.  
  
  
  
"Draco, I think we should move this somewhere more private." Harry said under his breath.  
  
  
  
"Agreed. Time and place?"  
  
  
  
"You know where." Harry replied, smiling mischeviously.   
  
  
  
'Why hadn't I ever noticed his smile?' Draco's mind thought, racing frantically while his body raced behind Harry to catch up to him. He came to an abrupt stop as Harry reached out and grabbed, him, pulling him off his feet and pressing him against the wall. "I'm so glad you're not leaving Draco because I don't know how I would ever survive without you." he gave him desperate and frantic kisses, trying to explain in words that he couldn't find. "How would I live?"  
  
  
  
Draco had no answer, just held his Gryffindor close, revelling in the fact that he had tamed a lion.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
And that ends this little flufflet fic! Let me know if you want me to add the scene I have written after this one, which is what Harry and Draco do when they get to their private room! Reviews keep me sane. Please check out my other Harry/Draco stuff and let me know if you think I should add to the little mini series I am writing or not! No flames. Hope you enjoyed. As I said this is inspired by and dedicated to my coworker J, it has been a pleasure and a torment and I am torn between intense joy that you are leaving and sorrow that you are.   
  
Ja ne! 


End file.
